Jim Meyering <j...@meyering.net> writes: > The existing code can factor arbitrarily large numbers quickly, as long > as they have no large prime factors. We should retain that capability.
My understanding is that most gnu/linux distributions build coreutils without linking to gmp. So lots of users don't get this capability. If this is an important feature, maybe one should consider bundling mini-gmp and use that as a fallback in case coreutils is configured without gmp (see http://gmplib.org:8000/gmp/file/7677276bdf92/mini-gmp/README). I would expect it to be a constant factor (maybe 10) times slower than the real gmp for numbers up to a few hundred bits (for larger numbers, it gets much slower due to lack of sophisticated algorithms, but we probably can't factor them in reasonable time anyway). Regards, /Niels -- Niels Möller. PGP-encrypted email is preferred. Keyid C0B98E26. Internet email is subject to wholesale government surveillance.
